


Bye Bye Blackbird

by Periculum Dulce (SparkleHellQueen)



Series: The She-Wolf of Vegas [2]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Alcohol, Amnesia, Blood and Violence, Cannibalism, Drugs, Gen, Implied Sexual Content, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-10
Updated: 2016-08-03
Packaged: 2018-05-13 02:33:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5691358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SparkleHellQueen/pseuds/Periculum%20Dulce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She woke up in an unfamiliar town with no family, no name, and a rabid dog in her heart set to destroy everyone and everything that lead her there. Don't you know that you should never kill the messenger?</p><p>A story following an evilkarma!Courier through her many poor decisions in the Mojave Wasteland.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Town Called Trouble

Amnesia, the doctor called it. 

The word felt strange and unfamiliar rolling off her tongue.

_Amnesia. Noun. A condition in which a person is unable to remember things because of brain injury, shock, or illness._

She knew that her hair grew dark and wild from her scalp. She knew that her eyes were blue, and she knew that the hilt of a knife felt safe and comforting in her palm, like the hand of a lover— but faces, conversations, and names were all lost to her. Even her own.

“For how long?”

_Maybe two weeks._

_Maybe forever._

The doctor helped her learn about herself.

She learned that she was a courier for the Mojave Express.

“Mojave Express,” she repeated slowly. Another word that felt unfamiliar, but evidence suggested otherwise.

_Courier Six_ , the crumpled letter in the doctor's hand addressed her as. She had been on an important mission to the neon gates of New Vegas.

_New Vegas._ That word she knew.

She learned more as she sat on the doctor's couch, responding to each question he read off with the first word that came to mind. 

“Dog.”

_Kick._

“House.”

_Target._

“Night.”

_Silencer._

“Bandit.”

_Stab._

“What do you see?”

_An oozing wound._

From the look on the old man's face, she should have thought up better answers. 

He was polite, but distant. Their time together was over now. He'd done all he could.

The rest was up to her.

Goodsprings was not her home, and it never could be. It was slow and suffocating, drowning her in false smiles. The way everyone looked at her with sympathy in their eyes made her want to wrap her hands around their neck until that look disappeared forever.

She didn't want anyone's sympathy, she just wanted everything to go back to the way it was... whatever that used to be. 

She needed to find the men who killed her and take back everything they had stolen. But no one had the answers she was looking for. 

Ask the robot. 

Ask Sunny Smiles. 

Ask Trudy.

In the end, nothing but a loose description and vague idea of which direction they may have gone in.

The Courier found herself hitting the road with the sun still high in the sky. A gun and a strange, heavy mechanism on her wrist were her only possessions in the world now.

But finally she felt she could breathe.

“Courier”, she repeated over and over again beneath her breath. Her new name.

“Courier. Courier Six. _The_ Courier.”

The words made her feel important. She was, after all, a woman on a mission.

One she had risen from the grave for.

She spent her first night as the Courier on a filthy mattress in the hollow shell of a trailer— a rusted skeletal remain of the pre-war world.

Nightmares awaited her behind the veil of sleep. Monsters with white teeth and checkered suits whispered to her about vast cities that she had never before seen. A pair of eyes stared at her— cold, unblinking, and achingly familiar.

_“Who are you?”_

The Courier awoke in a cold sweat to the blaring heat of the Mojave sun.

“Fuck,” she whispered to herself as she stretched her aching body. She'd slept too long and lost out on prime traveling time.

She shed the top half of her jumpsuit, tying it in a knot around her waist. 

A town by the name of Primm was her next destination, if Trudy was right. 

_There's a giant rollercoaster, you can't miss it._

The Courier had no idea what a rollercoaster was, but from the sounds of it, it was something big.

Her trek was eerily quiet, just like it had been the day before. Thunderclouds were brewing off in the distance, signaling the coming of the yearly rain. The animals knew better than to be walking around.

She passed by a small group of men. Powdergangers? Yes, that's what they were called. They'd been in Goodpsrings too.

They could burn that town to ashes for all she cared. It didn't concern her.

They ignored her, and she ignored them in return.

At last she spotted what must have been the “rollercoaster” the woman had mentioned; a winding wooden structure resembling a snake. It was certainly big, and definitely hard to miss. What it was for though, she didn't have a clue. Pre-war culture was a mysterious beast.

Her chest felt tight as she approached the town, her heartbeat fluttering in a fast, irregular rhythm. 

What was happening? Was this some weird side effect of getting shot in the head? 

The Courier balled her hands into fists and urged herself to keep walking forward, even as her footsteps became less and less steady.

“Hey, where the hell do you think you're going? Primm is off limits.”

Her blood went cold when she saw the man's uniform. She didn't know how or why, but she knew it. She knew it too well.

Panic crackled up and down her veins like lightning.

No. 

_No._

She needed to get out of there.


	2. Enemy of my Enemy

The world was a blur.

The Courier felt the sensation of cool metal held tightly in her hands. 

A combat knife, it's length disappearing into the chest of the man below her.

His throat was missing.

She tasted iron in her mouth.

Warm. Sharp. Too much of it, dribbling down her lips and soaking the front of her shirt.

The man looked her directly in the eyes with a wide, dark gaze. He blinked.

She ran.

She ran until her lungs burned and the muscles of her legs finally gave way, sending her tumbling hard into the dirt, tearing the skin on her knees. The Courier dragged her body into the shade of a broken down car before finally collapsing.

She could still taste blood in her mouth, and feel it dried in sticky clumps on her face. Her hair. Her clothes.

She knew exactly what she'd done. 

Sharp teeth grazed her bottom lip.

“Who are you?” she whispered, echoing the voice from her dream.

The wound on her forehead pulsed and ached.

Who are you?

And suddenly, a shallow grin spread slowly across her face.

Laughter filled the air, which she didn't immediately recognize as her own.

It was piercing. Maniacal.

The man's uniform, she knew it from somewhere. She had remembered something. Her memories weren't completely lost to her, after all.

NCR.

Trudy had mentioned them. The name was familiar to her now. The NCR, Powdergangers, and... some other group. She forgot the last one, it wasn't important to her.

Whoever she was— no, _is_ — the New California Republic was not her friend. They were to be feared. Avoided. Killed.

They wanted her dead, for reasons still unknown to her. And she wanted them all dead too. The very fiber of her being told her so.

A surge of confidence filled her as she stood up and looked over the terrain. Yes, she knew this place. She had been here before. 

She laughed again.

The possibility of regaining all of her memories was a reality now. The Doctor was wrong. Things could go back to how they were, and whatever that was it was so close. She could feel it burning on the horizon.

There was purpose in her life, and she would march forward to obtain it, no matter the cost. The gods of the wasteland must have spared her for a reason.

The Courier stood at a crossroad, a long stretch of road to her East and a hill to her West, leading to two giant statues. They loomed over the landscape in a way that made the back of her neck prickle.

Her instincts told her not to go West. There was danger there. A bad place. 

But something about the road to the East felt sinister as well.

West or East? West or...

_East._

She would head East.

There was strength in her steps, and the world no longer felt like an ominous creature hiding from her in the shadows.

She could do this. She was, after all The Courier. Courier Six. A woman on a mission, one which didn't seem so unobtainable now.

If she revisited enough places, she could remember. She knew she could.

But this new found enthusiasm was short-lived.

Each step she took the winds whispered to her that she was heading towards something bad. Something painful and better left forgotten.

The scent of smoke and charred flesh filled her nose. A familiar scent.

West. She should have gone West.

Why the fuck didn't she go West?

No. Keep going. 

She had already made her decision, and she had to keep going. 

Whatever was at the end of this road couldn't be as bad as whatever was back up on that hill.

“Yeah! Who won the lottery? I did!”

Her varmint rifle clattered to the ground, stirring up a cloud of sand.

“W-what? The lottery? Who the hell are you?” The Courier stammered, staring at the beady-eyed man who had suddenly appeared before her like an apparition.

Where did this man even come from? 

He crinkled his nose and pushed a cracked pair of glasses up on his face, clearly offended by her questions. “The lottery, that's what lottery! Are you stupid?”

Stupid? No, she was not stupid. She was confused, afraid, and lost but she was not _stupid_.

“You know what? Fuck you,” she snarled. She had no time for his nonsense, the man was delusional.

“I won the fucking lottery, hear me! So fuck you! Whoohoo!” he cackled at her, before jogging down the road with victorious howls.

The Courier picked her rifle back up, and considered shooting him. But she knew from her time spent with Sunny Smiles behind the saloon that she had little skill with a gun.

She moved on.

The encounter with the strange man did nothing to settle her nerves. The further she got down the road, the stronger the smell of death became until finally she stood before a town sign.

_Nipton_ , it read.

Nipton. 

Nipton. 

_“What have you done? What the hell have you done? We told you not to go down there!”_

The courier's stomach lurched. The voice, deep and male, rang so clearly in her mind that for just a second, she was sure that someone had spoken it out loud.

Another memory.

She knew this town. Something had happened here, years ago. 

It was her fault.

They all knew it.

She balled her hands up into fists, knuckles white.

What have you done?

What the hell have you done?

Acid filled her heart. Just like Goodsprings, she wanted this town gone. Whatever she had done here she wanted it to be erased forever. Burned to ashes along with everyone who lived there.

But it appeared that someone had beaten her to it.

The streets were lined with dying men, all strapped to upright wooden crosses, crying for help. Begging for death.

There was red in the form of banners hung from the decayed buildings. Red like fresh blood on the sand. She didn't recognize the sigil displayed on them.

She needed to turn back. 

Figures moved up ahead on the steps of a tall building, their movements slow and deliberate. Unafraid.

She raised her rifle, but they made no move to attack.

Their armor was red, just like the banners. Their eyes masked with dark goggles. Hounds lingered by their feet, baring their sharp white teeth in her direction.

Had she seen men like this before? She felt that she had, but they stirred neither hostility nor amiability in her. But the charred remains of the town was evidence enough that they were to be feared.

She bared her teeth like the hounds as one of the men approached her.

“Don't worry, I won't have you lashed to a cross like the rest of these degenerates. It's useful that you happened by.”

These men were... friendly then? She hesitated before finally lowering her weapon, slinging it back across her shoulder in a gesture of peace.

The man speaking to her had the head of a dog, and a voice like a serpent. 

“I want you to witness the fate of the town of Nipton,” he continued, “to memorize every detail. And then, when you move on? I want you to teach everyone you meet the lesson that Caesar's Legion taught here, _especially_ any NCR troops you run across.”

So they had a common enemy, and had no intentions of killing her. 

Fate was smiling upon her at last.

“Caesar's Legion?” the Courier asked, intrigued. “Don't think I've ever heard of you.”

The red glow of firelight danced across the man's face, making the skinned dog's eyes come to life. She wondered who was wearing who in that moment.

“The Legion is civilization reborn. Our culture is based on virtues such as martial excellence, loyalty, and justice. But you'll learn all there is to know in due time. Legatus Lanius, Monster of the East, will soon arrive to command Caesar's troops in battle. The Dam will fall, and the rest of the Profligate West will soon follow.”

The Courier nodded her head as he spoke, though she didn't have a clue what words like “profligate” and “Legatus Lanius” meant. The words were so strange, so foreign, like nothing she knew in English or Spanish. And yet she liked the way they sounded rolling off of his tongue.

“I like what you've done with the place, you know,” she said, gesturing to the men hanging from the crosses, “I never did like this town.” 

Her response elicited a curt, barking laugh from the man, who seemed genuinely amused by her words. The men around him seemed amused as well, though it was difficult to tell with their faces masked.

“It has a stark beauty, doesn't it? I'm glad you can appreciate it.”

The wind whipped around them, and the skies darkened. 

The storm was approaching.

“What's your name?” she asked him.

“I am Vulpes Inculta, of Caesar's Legion. I serve my master as the greatest of his Frumentarii. We Frumentarii are soldiers of a different stripe, capable in battle, but skilled as infiltrators and agents as well. And you, girl, what do they call you?”

She paused for a moment, considering her answer. She didn't have a name, not a real one anyway. “I'm the Courier. Courier Six.”

“Ah, well isn't this a surprise? You must be the Courier that everyone has been speaking about.”

Her chest felt tight again. She didn't like the idea of so many knowing about her existence. Why were they talking about her of all people?

The man, Vulpes Inculta, must have sensed her confusion.

“Shot in the head, only to claw her way out of her own grave? Your story is all over the radio, though of course they seem to get some of the details quite mixed up. Quite a few of them described you as a man, yet here you stand. If it's your killer you're looking for, he passed this way just the other day.”

“What!?” her eyes lit up, “You know which way he went?”

A smile spread across his pale lips, made harsh by the flames. 

Thunder roared in the near distance.

“If my assumptions are correct, he was on his way toward the town of Novac. But before you go chasing after him, my dear Courier, I ask that you head West to the Mojave Outpost and tell the Profligate troops what you found here. I trust you will do this?”

West. 

Mojave Outpost. 

That was a Bad Place. A place to be avoided. But these men— these new possible allies— were requesting it of her, and they had, after all, been generous enough to share the location of her killer.

“I'll do it,” the Courier stated. She hoped her eyes showed determination, not fear.

“Good. Then you best be on your way before the rain hits. And if you were to strike at the Profligates, butcher them, trouble their operations... this will not go unnoticed. I have a feeling that we will be meeting again quite soon. Vale, Courier.”

And with that he was off, his men following obediently behind him, and the hounds trailing after— one with a human arm clamped firmly in its teeth.

“Oh, and a word of advice, girl,” Vulpes Inculta turned to call out, “wipe the blood from your face first.”

She reached up to her face, feeling the blood that was still very much caked on.


	3. Purgatory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still kind of on a slow start, but things will start getting more interesting after this chapter, I promise!

There was all but an uproar when the Courier arrived at the Mojave Outpost.

She'd devised a story for herself on the way down, and talked herself out of fleeing more times than she could count. Running would only get her killed sooner than later, she told herself, and it would destroy any possibility of an alliance with her new friends.

“Are you hurt?” A blonde soldier came running up to her as she wandered up the hill with her best impression of terror on her face.

Oh, if only he knew that the blood on her clothing was that of his brethren.

“I was on my way to Novac when I came across the most awful sight. Nipton, that little town at the end of the road, they're... they're all dead.” She hid her face behind her hands, feigning tears.

Lying came naturally, she found.

She felt strong hands gently grasping her arms. Rough leather and linen pressed to her skin.

Her heart hammered in her chest, threatening to burst from her ribs.

“Dead?! Do you know what happened? Are you alright?”

The Courier nodded her head, slowly lowering her hands. The soldier had such sad eyes that looked out of place with the harsh lines of his armor. It almost made him look like the victim here. Hm, well, maybe he was.

“One of the townspeople, he was still alive... I tried to save him but it— “ she sniffed, “it was too late. He said the town was attacked by men who called themselves Caesar's Legion.”

His hands immediately fell to his sides when he heard those words. He mouthed things she could barely hear, his face like a ghost. She watched the unsteady movement of his lips.

“Caesar's Legion...”

The soldier looked so utterly lost that she almost felt bad for him. Almost.

He slowly shook his head from side to side. “No, it's too far West. They can't be. No. No! I-” he stopped to look at her, trying to pull himself together. “But you're okay?”

She nodded.

The rain hit.

It him them hard, and all at once, the way desert storms do, enveloping them in a downpour.

Their hair clung to their faces, water pouring down their bodies.

The water from the Courier's clothes ran red.

“I'm fine,” she said, wondering if he could hear her over the storm.

Evidently he could.

The smile he gave her was sad and weak, just like his eyes.

“I'm glad.”

Several moments passed between them as they stood there, unsure of what to say to one another.

He looked up, as if finally noticing the rain.

“Let's get you inside,” he said, “you need rest. I'll tell the others what happened.”

The Courier desperately ran through a list of possible excuses not to go inside. She didn't like admitting it to herself but she was scared. Terrified. There was a wolf among the flock, but until she walked out alive from this place she wasn't sure who was wolf and who was sheep. Her lackluster acting skills had gotten her this far, but would it be enough to fool an entire camp?

As it turns out, it was. No one questioned her story, or even looked at her suspiciously. They left her wrapped up in a blanket with a bottle of whiskey and a pack of cigarettes. She didn't realize how much she had missed those two vices.

All her worries temporarily slipped from her mind as she exhaled the smoke from her lungs, cheeks pulsing warmly from alcohol. And to think she'd been so scared.

NCR Troopers milled around like nervous rats on the other end of the room, discussing the Legion's presence in Nipton with not-so-hush voices.

After an hour or two passed, and the whiskey bottle was long empty, the blonde soldier returned.

“You should stay here until the rains stop. We're uphill where it's safe, and the Legion won't be making any moves until the storm is over.”

The Courier smiled, her whiskey-fueled brain suddenly finding the situation very funny. The Legion wasn't the ones she was worried about.

He helped her up, guiding her into the back of the building. “Bunks are this way. I guess I should have introduced myself sooner. I'm Adler. Sergeant Lawrence Adler of the New California Republic.” The way he recited his name sounded as though he'd been rehearsing it for years.

“I'm the Courier,” she replied, short and curt. No long, fancy titles for her.

They walked in silence down the dim corridor. There were many things she wanted to ask him about the NCR, wondering if any of his answers would unlock a new secret from her past life.

But she didn't.

Adler bade her goodnight and left her in the bunkroom. The cold mattress creaked beneath her back.

Rows and rows of beds filled the room, one stacked on top of another. They were all empty, their usual inhabitants still stuck in their fervent meeting in the bar. Lightning flashed through the boarded-up windows, casting strange shadows like clawmarks on the walls. The mechanism on her wrist announced the time in glowing green numbers. 1:39 AM.

Sleep eluded the Courier, despite the exhaustion that plagued her body. One by one she watched the soldiers drag themselves in from the other room, snoring within minutes of hitting their bunks.

3:57 AM.

Staring at the mattress above her had grown boring hours ago. She already found all the shapes hidden in the folds of the thick fabric— geckos, giant mantises, and one which resembled the head of a deathclaw.

Shedding her blanket, she walked silently back into the bar.

“Can't sleep either?”

The Courier turned to see a red-headed woman sitting at the counter. She had been there earlier as well, though she took little notice of her before. She was older and thin, but still pretty, with freckles scattered across her face like desert sand.

“No, I don't like being inside,” she replied.

The redhead smirked. “Tch, have a drink then. Make sure you put it on that bastard Jackson's tab.”

“Jackson?” The Courier asked, cautiously taking a seat next to the woman.

“Yeah, the washed up old fuck-up who runs this place. Does things by the book, which means shit doesn't get done here at all.”

She motioned for the bartender to replace the empty bottles sitting in front of them.

“Bar's been closed for an hour, just go the hell to sleep,” the woman grumbled, despite bringing out two new bottles of whiskeys for them.

The redhead grabbed one and took a swig, pushing the other toward the Courier.

“So I heard them call you a courier,” she began, face noticeably redder and a portion of her drink already drained, “you with the Mojave Express?”

“Guess I must've been. I don't remember, though. Don't really remember anything.” Anything good, anyway.

“What? Don't remember? You a damn junkie or somethin'?”

“A man shot and killed me.”

The sound of shattering glass filled the room, and the look on the bartender's face and the way she immediately brought out a new bottle told her that wasn't the first time it's happened.

“No fucking way! So you're that courier they keep talking 'bout on that boring ass ol' radio station. So you really got shot in the head?”

“Twice, if the doctor was right.”

“And you just... got better? Damn, now if that ain't a story to drink to.”

“Guess so,” the Courier took a deep gulp, feeling the satisfying burn deep in her throat.

“They call me Cass, Rose of Sharon Cassidy if you're getting formal. Used to call me "Whiskey Rose" back West, before I punched enough people, so now they say it, but quiet and when I'm not around.”

Cass seemed to take a deep interest in her after finding out that she was the courier from the news. “Most interesting thing 'round here before you showed up was the radroach hiding in the men's bathroom. Sure gave Major Knight one hell of a scare, ran outta there with his pants 'round his ankles and damn near pissed himself!”

A yell rang down the hall from the bunkroom, sounding faintly like “Shut the fuck up, Cassidy.”

Cass, of course, didn't seem to care and continued on about the frequent mishaps that occurred at the Outpost, and then later about all the best places to get laid East of Reno. Some of the places sounded familiar. Other didn't. The Courier drank while she listened, amused at some of the woman's antics, but mostly too busy thinking about the day that transpired. Nipton. The voices. The man she ate in Primm.

_Who are you?_

Some time in the early morning hours, the Courier finally drifted off to a restless sleep, slumped across the bar counter. She awoke back in the bunkroom which was once again empty. The clock of her pipboy told her that it was already late afternoon.

Cass remained in the same seat as the night before, and the Courier had the deep suspicion that she had never moved.

“Mornin', Buckshot,” the redhead greeted her, “How's about we do some more damage on Jackson's tab?”

The Courier peered outside. She could see Adler's silhouette standing guard by the front door. The rain was still pouring dangerously hard outside, and showed no signs of stopping. High tensions and the heavy feeling of restlessness lingered throughout the Outpost as soldiers and caravan drivers paced slowly back and forth. They all knew the dangers of flash floods and landslides that came with the yearly rains, and so did she. The best idea was to continue to stay put and wait, no matter how much every nerve in her body screamed to chase after the man that killed her.

Cass spent the day rambling to the Courier about life back West, and the caravan company she once ran. As her face got redder and her bottle got emptier, a sort of bitterness took over her voice. She began talking about how her mother was a tribal, and her father left her as a child. How she'd been stuck at the Outpost for some time, held up by NCR bureaucrats and paperwork after her caravans were destroyed. The Courier listened absent-mindedly, wondering why she was telling her— a complete stranger— all of these things. But maybe the woman was really talking to herself, and she just happened to be there. It was a strange feeling, knowing more about someone else's life than you did your own. And like that, another day had passed, and the storm had yet to let up.

By the third day, the ticking of the clock on the wall sounded too loud, too urgent. Getting drunk wasn't enough of a distraction for her anymore, and the rain not enough of a deterrent.

“I have to go,” the Courier stood suddenly, knocking over her barstool. The walls felt like they were closing in around her, ready to crush her under their weight.

“Go? Now? It's half past five and still pourin' out!” Cass slurred, confused.

“I have to go find him,” she said as she swung open the door.

“Find who?” she heard Cass yell after her as the door slammed shut behind her.

The cold rain drenched her clothes, making her feel awake for the first time in a long time.

 


	4. Coming Back Again

The smell of rot was stronger than ever back in Nipton, all trace of life long gone. The Courier replaced her torn, wet vaultsuit with armor made of a strong, light Gecko leather found in one of the houses. The town was left entirely unlooted, ripe for the picking, leaving a choice opportunity for her to fill a rucksack full of food, booze and cigarette cartons.

The bloated bodies of men, women, and even a legionary or two, were scattered around the town. She took a sharpened machete off of one of them, buckling the sheath around her narrow hips.

The Courier didn't stay long. The stench was becoming too much for her, and she was eager to be on her way to Novac, leaving Nipton and the Mojave Outpost behind for good. She'd be damn happy if she never had to see those places ever again.

A winding trail dividing two hillsides lead the way out of town. The storm wasn't letting up, and it would be at least another day before it would— she'd have to take a path over the hills to avoid the possibilities of a flash-flood.

The Courier slowly and agonizingly clawed her way up the muddy slope, her feet struggling to find footing on the slick surface. The joints of her fingers ached from her desperate clutch on a clump of roots. Lighting crackled dangerously close. Maybe drowning was a better option after all.

The climb couldn't have been more than a few minutes, yet it felt like hours until she finally saw level ground.

“Fuck do you think you're doing back in our territory, you toothy bitch?” a heavy boot slammed down on the Courier's left hand as she climbed over the final ledge.

She choked back a shrill scream of pain as she craned her neck to see a one-armed woman in spiked armor looming over her, neon-pink mohawk ruined by the rain. Two large men stood either side of her, clothed in mismatched armor.

“I don't know what the hell you're talking about,” the Courier hissed through clenched teeth.

The weight on her hand increased, and a low growl of pain escaped her lips.

“You playing stupid? I _said_ what the fuck do you think you're doing back in Viper territory? Your mangy little friends hiding somewhere round here? Crusoe,” the woman barked to the man on her right, “go look for the others, see if they're trying to set up some sort of ambush on us.”

Viper? Others?

She could feel her brain establishing a connection,  voices and images of a fight  flitting across her mind.  The sensation of sinking her teeth deep into someone's flesh, a blade cutting through tendon and bone. The animalistic screech of someone who has lost an arm.

The flash of lightning off of metal interrupted the memory, and she barely dodged the knife aiming for her neck. It grazed her shoulder and stuck in the ground, as she heaved all her weight against the woman's legs, toppling her on top of her remaining companion.

The Courier quickly scampered on top of the ridge, as she yanked her new machete from it's sheath, sticking it deep into the woman beneath her. She pulled up, hard, ignoring the protests of her left hand as she ripped blunt metal slowly through muscle and organ. There was movement to her left as the man leaped towards her. She yanked the blade out in time for it to connect with a heavy fire-ax.

“I'm going to fucking kill you!” he roared, swinging violently at her head.

The Courier was hardly able to block each blow before he swung again.

A sudden red, hot pain bloomed in her shoulder where the woman had cut her earlier.

_“The Vipers are mean sons of bitches, watch out for their knives_ _—_ _they're poisoned.”_

_“I know that, I'll be fine, don't treat me like a fucking kid.”_

That second voice... it was her own.

“Shit,” she snarled as she felt her back hitting cold dirt.  She'd been backed up against another ledge.  Her arms were already screaming in pain, and the man wasn't letting up in the slightest. If she didn't think fast she wasn't making it to Novac.

Her feet slid in the mud beneath them. She had an idea.

The Courier wrapped her ankle around the man's calf, and pulled back hard. It worked. He yelled as he lost his footing and hit the dirt with a heavy thump, sliding down toward the precipice.

Then she felt his hand grab her by her shoelaces.

_Fuck._

\- - - - - - - -

The room she was in was dark, with only a single light hanging directly above her. The air felt heavy and difficult to breath.

“Hello?” she called out. Her voice echoed endlessly, giving her the feeling that the space was far bigger than she could ever imagine.

“Hello.”

The Courier jumped in place at the sound of the voices, turning to see two figures standing at the edge of the light, their features obscured.

“W-where the hell am I?” she stammered. The light from her pipboy didn't glow green here.

“You know where you are,” they replied.

“No I don't! Who are you!?” she demanded, pointing at the figure on the left.

“I am you,” she answered.

Bile rose up in the back of her throat. “What? No, you can't b- who are you then?” she asked the second figure.

“I am also you.”

“Who are you?" the figures asked in ghostly unison.

The Courier stood, blinking, confused.

“I'm... I'm me.”

The Courier awoke to the words still on her lips, and a sharp, pulsing pain in her forehead.

She looked around, clutching her head in one hand. She was at the bottom of the precipice, her body covered in thick, red mud, and the Viper man laying still beside her.

He took short, shallow breaths, the handle of his ax peering out of his chest. The Courier shuddered to find her own weapon piercing the ground only inches away from her.  She wiped it clean and placed it back in its sheath.

She swore under her breath as she pulled herself up. Every part of her felt as though someone had taken a sledgehammer to it.  Dragging herself further up the path, she scouted for the third man, Crusoe, but saw no one up on the ridge. He must have assumed she died along with his friends.

Her shoulder throbbed feverishly.

_Right. The poison._

No wonder she'd had that crazy... hallucination, or whatever it was.

The Courier found her rucksack dangling from the branch of a small tree.  She grabbed it, hoisting it over her good shoulder, feeling the clink of broken glass. Half the shit in there must have been destroyed from the fall, but it didn't matter right now— stimpaks and antivenom were her top priority.

She limped slowly for a mile or so, feeling the pain and heat spreading down her arm. Her lungs burned from the cold air. As the landscape began to flatten out, the silhouette of a broken windmill and a small, rundown shack greeted her as she clambered over a final slope. 

Her grip tightened around her machete. “Anyone home?” she called out.

No one answered.

The Courier climbed a set of makeshift ramps, investigating the building.  Neglected crops dotted the area; maize, broc flower, xander root, and honey mesquite. A water filter dominated the center of the yard.The place was some sort of ramshackle farmstead.

“Hey, anyone fucking live here?” 

Still nothing.

Cautiously, she pulled the door to the building open, preparing herself for the worst.

Thunder roared in the sky above her.

The shack was practically empty, save for a bed, stove, table, and a set of broken lockers and crates. Everything looked as miserable as she felt.  A thin layer of dust covered the furniture, and rainwater dripped in through holes in the rusted metal ceiling.  The place was clearly abandoned.

Throwing her bag on the ancient mattress, the Courier got to work desperately scavenging through the lockers.  _Come on, come on._ She needed something, _anything,_ to offset the poison in her body before necrosis set in.

The shack provided her with nothing.  _Fuck_. 

The last-ditch option of bloodletting crossed her mind before she remembered the yard. Yes! It had everything she needed.

The Courier kicked the door open, scrambling into the garden to search for the necessary ingredients: xander root and broc flower. They plants were all half-dead but it should be enough to do the job. The tricky part would be the fire.

Using the campfire on the hill above the shack was out of the question in this weather, but a small metal roof protected a generator next to the house.  The Courier ran back inside, grabbing one of the wooden crates and smashing it beneath her boot. Emptying her bag, she thanked whatever gods were listening that she had thought to take a pack of matches from Nipton. She tucked the matches and splintered wood underneath her jacket, and took an unbroken bottle of vodka.

Back outside under the generator's roof, she heaped the wood into a pile and carefully set it aflame.  The Courier poured small amounts of the vodka on it until soon she had a roaring fire going. Emptying the rest of the vodka into the dirt, she filled the bottle halfway with rainwater, and added the thoroughly chewed remains of the xander root and broc flower to it.  Bitter Drink.  She wasn't sure how she knew these things, or what it said about who she was, but she could figure all that out later when she wasn't dying.

She placed the concoction in the flames, praying for it to work.  The liquid bubbled and turned a deep, dark brown. Wrapping her hand in the protective leather of her jacket, the Courier grabbed the bottle from the flames and waited for it to cool before downing it. She gagged at the disgusting but familiar flavor, willing herself to not vomit it back up.  Her stomach did somersaults in her torso, but within minutes she felt the venom's fever fading from her body.

Victoriously, she staggered back into the shack, toppling onto the bed and falling into a deep, deathlike sleep.

_I am the Courier,_ _I clawed my way out of my own grave. You can't kill me this easily._


	5. Uxoricide

“Well, I think that's a fine idea. I'll give you a good flat rate of one-hundred caps, and you can stay as long as you like. Least till the busy season comes. Sound good?”

One-hundred caps? She didn't have one-hundred caps. In fact, she had zero— possibly even in the negatives if Jackson ever decided to make her pay off her bar tab.

The Courier frowned. The old woman, calling herself Jeannie May, didn't seem like the bargaining type. Defeated, she walked back outside into the hot afternoon sun.

Her last two days were spent holed up in the rundown farmstead, which she later discovered from a small sign was named “Wolfhorn Ranch”. Her body still ached but the road to Novac was easy, and the rain had finally let up, returning heat and life to the desert.

A statue resembling an unrealistically large gecko dominated the dingy town.

“His name's Dinky. Dinky the T-Rex,” Cliff Briscoe, the overly cheerful shopkeep, told her as he traded her fifteen caps for some empty vodka bottles.

T-Rex, rollercoaster, profligate. There were too many words she didn't know.

She tucked the caps into her pant pocket. “I'm looking for some men who passed through here recently. One of them might have been wearing a checkered coat.”

The shopkeep thought for a moment, scratching his balding head. “Manny Vargas might know more about them. Thought he might've been friends with one or two of 'em. He's up in the dino mouth during the day.”

The Courier gave him a nod and made her way up the creaky set of stairs.

A man with tanned skin and a red beret greeted her.

“I'm guessing you must be Manny?” she asked, shutting the door behind her.

“Yeah, sure am. You see a rifle barrel sticking out of the dinosaur's mouth, you got a fifty-fifty shot it's me. Otherwise it's Boone.”

“Boone?”

“Boone's a sniper, same as me,” his eyes lit up as he began talking, “Used to spot for him when we were enlisted with the NCR. After we got out, I talked him into settling down here. So, here we are. I'd introduce you, but uh... we're not so friendly right now.”

He seemed more than eager to tell her why but she really didn't give a shit about this man's personal life.

“I'm looking for a man in a checkered coat. Know him?”

“Sure, I know him. What do you want with him?”

The Courier paused. “He's a friend of mine.”

Manny looked her up and down suspiciously. “Oh yeah? A friend? If you say so, man.”

She ground her teeth together in frustration, catching the edge of her lip. “Listen, I need to find this guy so what's it gonna take for you to tell me?”

“Well I can definitely help you find him, but I've got problems of my own. Maybe we can do a trade. You need my help. There's something I need, too.”

“...What do you need done?” she finally asked begrudgingly. His head would have looked nice on a spike right about now.

Manny settled back against the wooden interior of Dinky's mouth, gesturing across the landscape with his hand. “Novac, it's home for me now. I want that to be for good. I like it here, and I've left too many homes behind. But the only resource we got here is junk. Without that, people wouldn't have anything to trade. They'd all have to leave. We get most of it up the road from the old rocket test site. But a bunch of ghouls showed up one day and took it over. We can't get in there now.”

So he wanted her to hack her way through a road full of ghouls.

“Forget it,” the Courier left the sniper's nest, slamming the door behind her.

“Hey, do what you want,” he shouted from the other side of the door, “I'm just trying to make it easier on you.”

“Everything alright?” Cliff asked as she stormed her way towards the exit.

“Yeah, just _fucking_ dandy.”

\- - - - - - -

 

 

The Courier spent the day smoking in the shadow of the motel, waiting for evening. Manny Vargas was far from helpful, but his ex-buddy Boone might be a different story.

She watched as the sky changed from blue to a deep orange, then finally saw Manny walk out, replaced by another man minutes later. She waited for Cliff to close up for the day before making her way back up to the sniper's nest.

The barrel of a rifle faced her down before she even made it through the doorway.

“Goddamn it! Don't sneak up on me like that. What do you want?” the broad-shouldered man lowered his weapon after getting a look at her. He had a pair of sunglasses perched on his face, despite it being night.

“What I want is to not get my head blasted off,” she spat. Her heart-rate was going a million beats a second. “You must be Boone, right?”

“Yeah, that's me- Hey. You. You're new in town aren't you?”

She gave him a confused look. “Maybe I am, maybe I'm not.Why, what's it to you?”

He shook his head. “Yeah. Yeah, you are, aren't you? Maybe you shouldn't go. Not just yet. Anyway, I need someone I can trust, and you may be a liar, but you're also a stranger. And that's a start.”

“What the fuck are you talking about? You only trust strangers or something?” the Courier leaned back against the door, crossing her arms.

Boone looked like he was getting beyond fed up with her attitude. But what was he going to do, shoot her?

Well, maybe he was.

“I said it was a start. This town... nobody looks me straight in the eye anymore,” he turned away to look down at the houses below them. “I want you to find something out for me. I don't know if there's anything to find, but I need someone to try. My wife was taken from our home by Legion slavers one night while I was on watch. They knew when to come and what route to take, and they only took Carla. Someone set it up. I don't know who.”

The Courier could feel her eyes roll back into her skull. Apparently everyone wanted her to help them out for free around here.

“And let me guess, you want me to go find this person?”

Boone nodded sternly, slipping the red beret off his shaved head and handing it to her.

“Bring him out in front of the nest here while I'm on duty. I work nights. I'll give you my NCR beret to put on. It'll be our signal, so I know you're standing with him. And I'll take care of the rest. I need to do this myself.”

“...Alrighty then,” she slipped the beret into her back pocket as she left.

She had no plans of actually searching out for whoever the culprit was. Boone probably didn't even know which way the man in the checkered coat went, he didn't exactly come off as the sharpest knife in the drawer. No, she'd just take the easy route and break into the motel office. With any luck there would be a spare key into Manny's room, and something to tell her which way her killer went, then she could leave this shit-hole behind and be on her way.

Picking locks came as naturally as lying did. A bobby pin and a screwdriver and the door to the office opened within seconds. The Courier crept inside, using the light of her pipboy to search for the keys. The counter was littered with papers, mugs, and Dinky figurines, but not a key in sight.

“Come on you old bitch, where do you keep your keys,” she muttered as she clawed around the office.

Her left foot grazed something on the floor. A safe.

“Bingo.”

It was more difficult to open than the door. Several bobby pins snapped in half before she finally heard the satisfying click of the tumblers unlocking.

The Courier shined her light in the safe, hoping to see the glint of metal. All she found was a .32 pistol and a neatly folded piece of paper. She picked it up, and unfolded it— holding it out in the light to read.

“We, the representatives of the Consul Officiorum, have this day bargained and purchased from Jeannie May Crawford of the township of Novac the exclusive rights to ownership and sale of the slave Carla Boone for the sum of one thousand bottle caps, and those of her unborn child for the sum of five hundred bottle caps, the receipt whereof is hereby acknowledged-”

A grin spread across her face as she read the words. _Well, well._

 

 

\- - - - - - -

 

“Scream and you lose your head,” the Courier said as she cocked the .32 pistol, pressing it up beneath Jeannie May's neck.

The old woman woke with a start, her eyes bulging out of their sockets.

“Please!” she begged, pulling her blankets up to her mouth as if to hide, “If it's caps you want, I have some stored in the bottom drawer of my bureau-”

“Shut up,” the Courier pushed the gun harder into her artery, “Just so happens that I've come across a little something about you, Carla Boone, and some of our _friends_ in the Legion.”

“I don't know what you're talking about!”

The Courier scoffed, pulling the bill of sale from her pocket. “Oh really? Well lucky for you, I'm not here looking for justice. No, I'm here to make a deal with you.”

Jeannie May's eyebrows furrowed, unsure of what to make of her words. She gav no reply.

“Give me the key to Manny Vargas' room, and reduce the rent fees to zero caps, and I'll make this piece of paper disappear forever. In fact, I'll be so nice, that I'll even make Manny into the scapegoat so no one ever even comes looking in your direction. Then we can all pretend that none of this ever happened. That a deal?”

“M-Manny? But he's always been such a dear! Protecting this town for years now up from Dinky's mouth.”

“The wasteland's full of snipers, you'll find a new one. Besides, you've got Boone up there already. So do we have a deal, or am I going to have to let the whole town know what you did to Carla?”

The woman sighed, closing her eyes. “Alright. We have a deal.”

“Good,” the Courier smiled, her teeth flashing in the moonlight. “And don't bother trying to rat me out, I've already made arrangements for someone in town to fill your fucking skull full of bullet holes if anything happens to me.”

This was— of course— a blatant lie, but Jeannie May Crawford seemed to eat it all up, beads of sweat pouring down her face. 

The Courier pulled the .32 away and uncocked it. “Keys, please,” she sang cheerfully, “Oh, and I'll be taking those caps too.”

 

 

\- - - - - - -

 

 

Manny Vargas' head exploded like a mutfruit.

She watched from several yards away, hiding her smirk beneath a cigarette.  Maybe she didn't remember much of anything about her life, but this definitely made it in her list of top five most satisfying moments.

The son of a bitch knew everything after all. The note left on his terminal had all the information she'd been looking for, even her killer's name. _Benny._

The Courier wiped off a splash of blood that had landed on her cheek and headed up to meet Boone.

“Nice shot,” she said.

“How did you know it was him?” he asked, not bothering to turn to look at her. His voice was even emptier than it had been the night before.

She shrugged. “It was pretty obvious once all the pieces fell into place. Manny always wanted things between you two to go back to how they were, no matter what it took. He was always jealous of Carla, wasn't he?”

That last piece of information she learned from Jeannie May.

Boone stayed quiet for a while. Even his breathing was barely audible. Finally he shook his head and shoved a small pouch in her hands.

“Well, that's about all the proof I could hope for, I guess. Here. This is all I can give. I think our dealings are done here.”

The Courier eagerly checked the contents of the pouch she was handed. There was a hefty amount of caps in there— Novac had turned out to be quite the jackpot.

“See you 'round,” she said.

She hoped she wouldn't.


	6. Ring of Fire

She must've— no, she _knew_ she took a wrong turn somewhere on her way to Boulder City. Instead, she found herself standing in front of a group of rangers looking down onto a small camp.

A gruff bearded man made his way toward her, blocking the road forward. “Hold up there. This area is locked down by the NCR military until we can dislodge some Legion snakes from Nelson.”

Her ears perked at the mention of the Legion. She hadn't run into anyone from across the river since her encounter with the mysterious Vulpes Inculta in Nipton. She was eager to know more.

“Why, what's the trouble?” she asked, placing her hands firmly on her hips, trying her best to make herself look important.

The ranger sighed and pinched the bridge of his sunburned nose between his fingers. His voice held the twang of a Nevada local. “Hell, what ain't the trouble with the Legion? This time, they jumped the camp in Nelson while the troopers were setting up. Captured a bunch of gear and took the town. Couple of troopers too. Got 'em crucified down near the center of town.”

“So? Why haven't you just attacked them?”

The answer to this conundrum didn't exactly seem complicated.

“Because, back at 'Ranger School',” he said distastefully, placing air quotes around the word, “they taught us not to run headlong into a battle when you're outnumbered ten to one.”

_And if you were to strike at the Profligates, butcher them, trouble their operations... this will not go unnoticed._

This seemed like the perfect opportunity for her to score some points with Caesar's Legion.

“Well lucky for you- what's your name?”

“...Ranger Milo.”

“Well lucky for you, _Ranger Milo_ , you happen to have a skilled negotiator on your hands. Five hundred caps and I'll go down there and talk to those legionaries in your camp.” _Yeah, and tell them to come up here and cut your heads off._

Ranger Milo burst into deep, howling laughter until tears were streaming from his eyes. Even the soldiers behind him, who up until now had been flocked behind him quaking in their boots, were snickering and whispering amongst themselves.

The Courier felt her face flush a deep crimson.

“ _You?_ Walking into a Legion-occupied camp?” the ranger could barely manage the words through heaving breaths, more laughter escaping him, “Look, lady, you'd be shackled up and scrubbing floors within thirty seconds of stepping foot down there.”

Shackled? Scrubbing floors? No, she was the Courier. She'd dealt with the Legion before and come out unscathed.

“Out of my way,” she shoved passed the ranger and his troop, making sure her shoulders connected roughly with each of them.

“Hey!” Ranger Milo called after her as she descended the slope, “I don't need you dying on my watch! Are you listening? Get back up here!”

The Courier ignored him, walking boldly into the center of the camp where three soldiers hung crucified on a wooden platform. They were alive and breathing, but stared off into the horizon with the eyes of the dead.

“Halt, profligate! What are you doing here? State your business!”

A legionary patrolman stood in front of her, his machete drawn and pointed toward her chest.

His face was masked like the legionaries in Nipton, but judging by his voice, and the way his tunic hung loosely on him, he was still young. A teenager.

“Here to see whoever runs this place,” the Courier crossed her arms. She sneered at the two growling hounds by the boy's feet. She'd figured out by now that she hated dogs.

“This camp is under the command of Decanus Dead Sea. What do you want with him?” his voice cracked. Definitely a teenager.

The Courier jabbed a thumb up towards the hill, where the would-be ambush awaited quietly. “I'm here to talk about the little _problem_ up on the hill.”

A minute passed as the young legionary contemplated his decisions. It was obvious that he was the bottom-tier soldier there, and every action he took weighed heavily on him. “Very well, profligate. This way.”

He lead her toward the building sitting to the far North side of the camp, turning every few steps to keep his eyes on her. He commanded the dogs to stay at the bottom of the steps, ushering her up through the door.

Five men awaited them inside, along with the thick, heavy smell of rot. The Courier thought she could see outlines of the bodies of NCR soldiers laying in the back of the dusky room.

“What is it now, Catullus?”, a man with a deep voice made his way toward them. Large red, white, and black feathers adorned his helm in an array, giving him the appearance of a strange bird.

“This profligate woman wishes to speak to you, sir,” Catullus choked, a slight quiver in his voice.

The feathered man, who she assumed to be Decanus Dead Sea, looked her up and down before dismissing the young legionary, sending him scuttling back to his patrol route.

“Ave,” his voice sounded almost bored, “Why have you come to Nelson?”

“Just happened to come across an NCR ambush waiting for you up the road. I was curious why you haven't attacked them yet.

“I _have_ attacked the enemy,” Dead Sea's words dripped with frustration, “I led the assault on Nelson with two conturbernia against twice our number. It is Caesar's wish that we hold this position. Our mere presence this side of the Colorado humiliates and demoralizes the enemy!”

Apparently she had offended him.

The Courier took a step back, throwing her hands up in apology.

“Look, carry on with whatever you're doing, I was just wondering what I could do to help end the stalemate-”

“ _What stalemate?_ ”

The Courier wasn't the only one to jump at his sudden interjection.

“It is Caesar's will that I hold this position - that I _not_ advance. You are not my Centurion! You aren't even Legion! I do not 'carry on' at your command! If you're so eager to see Camp Forlorn Hope fall, why don't you go attack it all by yourself? Well?” Dead Sea tapped his foot roughly and impatiently on the wooden floor, visibly seething.

This wasn't going anything like her encounter with Vulpes Inculta.

A bead of sweat trailed down her neck.

She fucked up. She really, _really_   fucked up this entire conversation, and she had a feeling it would make it's way back to Caesar, whoever he was, and tarnish any chance at a good reputation with him. She took a deep breath.

“Then I'll do it. I'll take out Camp Forlorn Hope.”

Everyone in the room looked as surprised as she did, even with their faces masked. She almost didn't believe the words had come out of her mouth. She didn't even know where this damn camp even was!

Dead Sea scoffed. “Is that so, woman? Well that remains to be seen. A vow without action is breath across the lips, nothing more.”

 

 

\- - - - - - -

 

 

“Bring me all the dogtags and I'll give you your caps,” the Courier stated, shaking the pouch full of caps in her hand for emphasis.

The large man sitting across from her furrowed his brows. “Pay half now, or no deal,” his gruff voice echoed in the abandoned gas station. A heavily-armored man and woman loomed behind him like shadows.

The place really reeked of gasoline, it was starting to give her a headache.

What did these people call themselves again? The Claw Corps? Fang Brigade? No, that wasn't it. Talon something? Talon Company. Yes, that was it.

Talon Company.

Maybe a bullet to the brain had made her crazy, but she wasn't about to single-handedly take on an entire NCR camp by herself. Enough casual conversation with an old woman at a scrapyard had brought up their name, and a quick solution to her problem.

She made a show of slowly pulling the caps back into her pocket. “How do I know you won't just take the money and run?”

A large knife slammed into the card table between them, sending a crack through the ancient wood.

“How do _you_ know we won't just kill you right here and now?”

The Courier merely raised a brow at the man's poor attempt at intimidation. It was going to take more than tough words and playing with knives to scare her. She feigned a yawn.

“Kill me now and you'll never see the rest of those caps. You think I'm stupid enough to come here with a thousand caps sitting in my pockets? Full payment when you bring me back all those dogtags, and it better be all of them or I'm gonna start deducting.”

The truth was, there was no other half. Jeannie May had provided her with quite a hefty amount back in Novac, and it was still nowhere near what these mercs were charging her for their little murder operation. But rumor had it that they'd fled here from somewhere out East years ago, and they looked just desperate enough for work to take the bait.

“Fine.”

And right she was.

“Good,” she flashed him a toothy grin, standing and gesturing toward the door, “You know where to find me.”

The Talon Company mercs were back two days later before sundown.

“Guessing it all went well?” she asked, leaning up against the crumbling gas station wall with a lit cigarette in her mouth. They looked utterly exhausted, black armor splattered in blood and bits of who-knows-what.

“Jobs done. Time to pay up,” the merc leader growled at her, thrusting a fistful of NCR dogtags in her direction.

The Courier batted his hand away. “Caps are hidden in a rock a few yards over there,” she pointed across the road, “stay here and I'll go grab them.”

A large hand pulled her back by the collar, slamming her body against the building. “Don't you fucking think about it, bitch.”

This was the first time she'd heard either of the other two henchmen speak.

“Relax,” she said, looking the other woman in the eyes. Her back was going to be sore in the morning. “All I want are those dogtags, you can keep them here while I get the money.”

The woman looked to her boss for confirmation. He gave her a curt nod. “Walk out of our sight and you're dead. Hear me?”

“Loud and clear,” the Courier replied.

She took a long drag on her cigarette as she walked away, feeling the eyes of the three mercenaries boring into her back. She flicked the ash and tossed the cigarette behind her.

The eruption of flames nearly drowned out the hellish screaming.

She had been sure to test out the gasoline she found in the station's garage before dousing the ground in it that morning, but she had still left much to chance. As it turned out, the plan couldn't have gone any better.

The Talon Company mercs shrieked in the flames, clawing at their clothing and rolling about in the dirt— but their efforts were futile against fifty gallons of pre-war gasoline soaking the earth beneath them. Even from over a hundred feet away she could still feel the heat radiating warmly on her skin. The stench of their burning bodies reminded her fondly of Nipton.

The Courier sat patiently on a rock, lighting up another cigarette, waiting for the flames to die down. Flesh burned, but metal didn't, and she still needed those dogtags for Dead Sea.

It was early morning by the time the earth was cool again. The pale desert moon reflected off the sign reading “Poseidon Energy”, making it glow like an apparition. She strode towards the charred remains littering the ground around the gas station. Hell, the gasoline fire really did a number on them. She couldn't tell who was who anymore, just piles of blackened bone and sinew under melted combat armor. The dogtags were sitting neatly beside one of the corpses; blackened but nothing she couldn't scrub away on her shirt.

“Was nice doing business with you.”

 


	7. Bittersweet Creature

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Once again love drives me on, that loosener of limbs, bittersweet creature against which nothing can be done."  
> -Sappho

The Courier ran her hands along the worn grip of her new machete, a gift from Dead Sea. It was of noticeably better quality than the one she scavenged off the corpse in Nipton— the edge might even be sharp enough to cut bone. The idea was thrilling, but there was also something satisfying about the work it took to split an enemy apart with a dull, rusty blade.

The decanus had seemed oddly annoyed when she showed up back on his doorstep with the collection of NCR dogtags in her hand. He reluctantly handed over his blade as a reward, mumbling something beneath his mask about working harder to earn a new one for himself. The effort she spent in getting Camp Forlorn Hope wiped off the map— while also making it appear to him that she pulled it off single-handedly— apparently wasn't good enough for the asshole. But there was no way the news of the skilled massacre wouldn't make its way back to Caesar. A smile curved on her thin lips.

Boulder City wasn't a far trek from Nelson, twenty-five miles at best, but the sun was setting quickly in the horizon.

_“You know what I call people that travel alone at night? Food.”_

By now she was almost starting to get used to the voices echoing in her mind; they came every now and then, though they still managed to catch her off guard. At one point she was beginning to think her head injury was causing hallucinations, but they always seemed connected to her doing or seeing something that felt achingly familiar. It was the man's voice again this time, the one who always sounded like he wanted her dead.

The memories were still too few and far between for her to make any solid connections about who she used to be, but there were three things she was able to know for sure:

One, the New California Republic was, for reasons still unknown, the biggest threat to her— even if they hadn't made a single menacing move towards her since waking up in Goodsprings. 

Two, she was a local, there was no way she couldn't be. The sound of the coyotes baying in the late evening was the sound of home. Every mesa, every bit of plant and wildlife, it was all as familiar to her as her own gaunt reflection in the quickly-disappearing rain puddles.

Three, she ate people.

It was the last part that was the biggest conundrum. The act of consuming another human being was one of the greatest taboos, she knew that, but she also knew that there was a law and order within the Wasteland, and who was she to deny it? Kill to eat, and eat to live. 

There was a bridge up ahead she could take shelter beneath for the night. The land here was too flat for the rocky outcroppings she preferred to sleep under— something about pre-war constructions always made her uneasy, like they would swallow her up in the night.

The smell of smoke hit her long before she saw the barrel fires. The Courier slowed her steps and proceeded cautiously, her long fingers curling into fists. People were already there. 

A great deal of people, as it turned out.

“Welcome to the 188 Trading Post! Like the slogan says, 'It's better than nothing',” a middle aged man greeted her from behind a makeshift counter.

Frankly, the Courier would have preferred the “nothing” option.

“I'm just looking for a place to stay tonight,” she said looking around. Seeing so many people gathered in such a desolate location made it feel like a desert mirage. A fever dream.

“How about some food? Water? A beer?”

“Listen,” she replied, “I'm fine-”

The man started telling her about a great once-in-a-lifetime offer on some cram when she spotted the figures pacing the bridge. Oh great, looked like the NCR was there too. Couldn't walk five feet without bumping into more of those fuckos apparently. Maybe she should scout out somewhere else to stay the night.

The Courier prepared to leave when she felt the gentle brush of fingertips against her forearm.

“Hey, hey wait up!”

She turned to see dark, round eyes peering up at her from beneath a hood. Her body tensed, her heart beating hard in her chest.

“Hi, I- oh, are you okay?” the young woman asked.

The Courier raked a hand through her dark bangs, trying hard to erase the obvious look of shock from her face. “I'm fine, you just... reminded me of someone I guess.”

She knew she'd never met this woman before, but something about her eyes, and the soft curve of her lips brought out a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach. Pain and warmth and sadness, all rolled into one.

“I saw you wandering through, and no offense, but you look like you've traveled a long way down some bad roads. Made me curious. Where'd you come from?”

“The grave,” the Courier answered bitterly. She wasn't entirely joking.

The woman's eyes widened, “Huh. Well, in that case I take it back. You look pretty good, given the circumstances. Well, welcome, then. I'm Veronica. I live in a hole in the ground.”

“A hole in the ground?” the Courier blinked her eyes slowly. Did she mean a cave? A coyote den? Scorpion nest?

“Well, a bunker, if you want to get technical,” Veronica shrugged, “I think it sounds more interesting my way. But I'm not there much anymore. I'm usually out here picking up food and supplies for my family. Whatever they need.”

“Well what I need is to catch a few hours of sleep so I can head to Boulder City at sunrise,” the Courier began to turn away again, scanning the area for a place to lay down. Why was it that everyone was so eager to chat her up?

Veronica's eyes lit up at the mention of Boulder City. “I knew it!” she exclaimed, clasping her small hands against her chin, “You looked like the traveling type! Okay, okay, can I just ask you one question first?”

“What kind of question?” the Courier raised an arched brow.

“I had a run-in with this group calling themselves the Brotherhood of Steel. Pretty strange bunch. Do you know anything about them?”

Brotherhood of Steel? The Courier thought hard, trying to see if the name had any ring of familiarity to it. She was sure she'd heard it mentioned once or twice before, maybe some time long ago, but nothing beyond that came to mind. “Don't think so.”

Veronica had an odd look on her face that was decidedly hard to decipher. “That's okay, I wouldn't expect anybody to. I think they tend to keep to themselves. But anyways, I'll be honest. You're the first person I've run across out here that looks like she can really handle herself. There are places I've never been to that'd be too dangerous for just me. What do you think? Maybe we could travel together, help each other out.”

The Courier crossed her arms and took a step back, carefully assessing the woman in front of her. Sure, she was cute. Real cute. But also incredibly suspicious, and she sure as hell wasn't looking for traveling companions. All she wanted was to find Benny and make him pay for putting her in an early grave. “You should go back to your family,” she replied sternly.

“Oh, they’ll be fine without me for a while. Doubt I’ll be missed much!” Veronica’s voice sounded much too cheerful for the words she just spoke.

The Courier wondered if she had a family of her own out there somewhere, though the chances of that were feeling pretty slim. But still, there was an odd feeling to falling asleep alone every night, a sort of lukewarm emptiness that made her feel all too aware of the space of her surroundings. There had to be a reason the woman standing beside her made her heart drum so audibly in her chest.

The Courier stopped mid-step. “Where are you sleeping tonight?”

The woman in the hood snored loudly on her bedroll, while the Courier silently watched her from feet away where she lay curled up in the dirt, her jacket beneath her head. Minutes earlier, Veronica had confided in her about her position as a member of the Brotherhood, though the words meant little to the Courier. She had no plans to take her along to New Vegas, or to see her ever again after tonight— though of course she lied about all that. It was far easier than admitting that she had been suddenly overcome with heartache for someone whose face she couldn’t even entirely remember.

_There were dark lashes, and gentle hands running through the thick mess of her hair, stopping to caress the jagged scars that marred her left cheek._

_“You’re too reckless, you know that?”_

_“I’ll never know that,” she heard her own voice reply._

_Warm lips brushed against hers, sighing softly. The sensation of flesh on flesh; of body on body._

_“Don’t make me have to mourn for you.”_

“I’m sorry you had to,” the Courier whispered aloud. There was wetness on her face. She told herself it was just the sting of fire smoke in her eyes.


End file.
